Despite
renewed hopes for reconciliation between Washington and Tehran
following the Iran nuclear deal, the Obama administration is
reportedly preparing new sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

In
July, negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 nations, including
France, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, China, and
Germany, led to a historic deal. Under the terms of the
deal, after providing assurances that it was not enriching
uranium to pursue a nuclear weapon, international sanctions
against Iran would be gradually lifted.

But
on Wednesday, US officials, speaking on condition
of anonymity, revealed that the US Treasury Department is
prepared to roll out new sanctions against companies
and individuals not only in Iran, but also in Hong
Kong and the United Arab Emirates, according to the Wall Street
Journal.

The
penalties are reportedly related to Tehran’s test-firing
of two ballistic missiles, one in October and another
in November. Washington views the launches as a violation
of international law, though Tehran maintains that the tests
were conducted in according with UN regulations, and the
missiles are defensive only.

If
approved, the sanctions would apply to five government officials
working in Iran’s Ministry of Defense for Armed
Forces Logistics.

The
Obama administration is also targeting Mabrooka Trading Co. LLC, a
UAE-based entity, as well as its founder, Hossein
Pournaghshband, for its alleged role in aiding Iran’s
ballistic missile program. Penalties would also apply to Anhui
Land Group Co, a Hong Kong-based subsidiary said to be used
by Pournaghshband to produce carbon-fiber material for the
missile program.

The
sanctions would place these entities on a business blacklist,
and would freeze their assets in US banks.

US
officials stress that new sanctions are unrelated to the nuclear
accord, but Iranian officials have warned in recent months
that new financial penalties would be seen by Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei as a breach of the agreement.

Tehran
recently accused the United States of violating the nuclear
accord over legislation passed by the US Congress. New laws
passed after the San Bernardino shooting require any foreign
national who has visited Iran or Syria to obtain a visa
before entering the US. Tehran claims this move could harm
Iranian business, and cut off access to foreign investment.

The
Treasury Department’s decision comes as the Obama
administration prepares to lift sanctions related to Tehran’s
nuclear program. The lifting of those penalties was set to begin
next month, following Iran’s shipment of 25,000 pounds
of uranium to Russia, a sign that the government was
abiding by the accord.

CrossTalk:
Farewell 2015

The
year 2015 is about to end and what a ride it has been! There was no
shortage of stories for this program and station to cover. We have
reported the news and provided alternative narratives. On this
edition of CrossTalk some of my colleagues at RT and I talk about the
year that was.

US
MILITARY TO EXPAND GLOBAL OPERATIONS IN 2016

The
year 2015 will be remembered as a year of expanding global warfare
and militarism. It began with discussions of the possibility of
“total war” against Russia over the Ukraine crisis, saw new
provocations against China in the South China Sea, and draws to a
close amid the escalation of the US and European war in Iraq and
Syria and the spread of conflict to Yemen, Libya and other parts of
Africa.

The
imperialist powers are determined to make 2016 an even bloodier and
more dangerous year. Germany and Japan are openly remilitarizing, as
their governments seek to whitewash and rationalize the crimes of the
World War II era. All of the imperialist powers have seized on the
terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino to place their populations
and economies on a war footing.

The
most dangerous factor is the US drive for global domination. The
United States has its hands in virtually every country, employing
drone assassinations, Special Forces operations and a network of
military bases and agreements aimed at establishing unchallenged
military domination over the planet, along with cyberspace and outer
space.

More
plans are afoot. Washington is preparing to expand its global basing
system through the addition of a “larger network envisioned by the
Pentagon,” which will include at least four new Special Forces hubs
and numerous new “spoke” bases, according to a New
York Times article
published Monday.

The
commando network will be centered on Eurasia and Africa but will be
global in scope, according to Pentagon officials. Among the new bases
will be a permanent establishment in Afghanistan, which will function
as “a hub for Special Operations troops and intelligence operatives
throughout Central and South Asia.”

The
record of the US special units, which have emerged as the spearhead
of the so-called “war on terror” since 2001, makes clear the
murderous nature of the escalating commando war. US Special Forces
have been granted a general license to carry out violence and mayhem
in every part of the world with total disregard for international
law. Thousands of US commandos are already operating in between 85
and 130 countries worldwide, according to varying estimates by US
media sources.

The
enlarged Special Forces network is only one element of a broader
strategic escalation by Washington. US weapons manufacturers are
collaborating with the government to channel an expanding war chest
of arms to allied governments and proxy forces, with American weapons
sales surging in recent years. In 2014, total US arms sales jumped by
$10 billion to a total of $35 billion, giving US corporations control
over 50 percent of the world weapons market, according to a
congressional report released last week.

The
intensified drive for a redivision affects every region of the world.

Europe

Washington
is pre-positioning military equipment and deploying conventional
forces and military “advisors” and trainers throughout Europe in
preparation for war against Russia.

The
US Army plans to double the number of tanks it has deployed to
Europe, sending another full armored brigade to the continent,
accompanied by infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons as
well as an additional full Army division dedicated to joint
operations with NATO and European militaries.

In
Ukraine, US Army forces are training five battalions of active-duty
forces and US Special Forces are partnering with the Ukrainian
military to develop Ukraine commando units.

Asia
Pacific

South
Korea, a country that has been tapped to serve as a staging area for
US war preparations against China, was the leading importer of US
arms in 2014, purchasing nearly $8 billion worth of American-made
weaponry.

In
December, the Obama administration approved the sale of $1.8 billion
worth of weapons to Taiwan, including warships previously used by the
US Navy and several advanced missile systems. The sale was the first
weapons transfer to Taiwan in years and was clearly intended as a
provocation against Beijing.

In
the Pacific, the US Army’s “Pacific Pathways” program is
coordinating joint operations with Asia-Pacific militaries. In the
course of 2015, the program saw the US conduct joint drills with
units from Australia, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Malaysia,
Mongolia, South Korea and Thailand.

Middle
East

Leading
purchasers of US weapons in 2014 included the ultra-reactionary
regimes of Saudi Arabia, which purchased $4 billion worth of TOW
missiles, and Qatar, which purchased $9.8 billion worth of US arms.
Qatar has been a major backer of Islamist forces in Syria in the
US-backed civil war against Assad.

The
US has spearheaded a new imperialist carve-up of the entire region,
with Britain, France and Germany piling into the wars in Iraq and
Syria toward the end of 2015 and Saudi Arabia leading a US-backed war
in Yemen.

Africa

Total
arms sales to Africa—particularly in the oil-rich regions—increased
by 50 percent between 2010 and 2014 over the previous five-year
period. Cameroon and Nigeria, which are collaborating with the
growing US intervention in West Africa in the name of the “fight
against Boko Haram,” were among the leading importers of weapons.
Preparations are underway to relaunch military operations in Libya,
already devastated by the US-NATO war that overthrew and murdered
Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Cyber
and outer space

Even
cyberspace and outer space are not exempt from the US-led
militarization drive. In November, the US was one of only four
countries to vote against a United Nations resolution, “No First
Placement of Weapons in Outer Space,” which was supported by more
than 120 member states. In a presentation earlier this year, US
Undersecretary of Defense Robert Work outlined Pentagon plans to
deploy a range of space weapons, which Work claimed are necessary to
ensure military dominance over Russia.

***

The
experience of the Obama administration has underscored the
impossibility of opposing imperialist war outside of a struggle
against the capitalist system and all of its political
representatives. Having won office in 2008 as an antiwar candidate,
presenting himself as an opponent of the war in Iraq and an antidote
to the militarism of the Bush administration, President Obama has
presided over an escalation of the war in Afghanistan, wars for
regime change in Libya and Syria, and a new war in Iraq.

Obama’s
talk about ending the war in Afghanistan has been exposed by his
decision to keep thousands of US troops in the country and the plans
to establish permanent US bases there. All of his pledges of “no
ground troops” or “boots on the ground” in Iraq and Syria have
been exposed as lies.

The
divisions that exist within the US ruling elite and the state over
foreign and military policy concern the focus and methods of US
efforts to dominate the territory and resources of the world, with
the Obama White House arguing for a concentration on the struggle
against China and his opponents demanding a larger commitment of
troops and weapons to turn the Middle East into a de facto US colony.
But there is no “peace faction” within the corporate and
political establishment, or either of the two big-business parties.

One
side of the global crisis is the slide toward a new world war. The
other is the development of revolutionary struggles by the working
class. Vast resources are allocated to destruction and war, while
growing sections of the US population are pushed into poverty and
forced to struggle for basic necessities such as housing, education,
nutrition and health care.

The
struggle against war can be conducted only on the basis of the
independent mobilization of the working class in the US and
internationally against imperialism on the basis of a socialist and
internationalist revolutionary program.

Foreign
planes dropping military aid for Islamic State in Kirkuk

Iraqi
security sources disclosed on Tuesday that the ISIL Takfiri terrorist
group has received military aid and other supplies dropped by unknown
planes near the city of Kirkuk, Northern Iraq."After
the US army's special heliborne operations in Southwestern Kirkuk,
unknown planes dropped military supplies and other aids for the ISIL
in the Southern part of Kirkuk," an Iraqi security official,
speaking on the condition of anonymity, told FNA on Tuesday.

The
official did not disclose more details about the identity of the
planes, but said that it might have been US or Turkish.

In
early November, the Iraqi defense ministry announced in a statement
that two Canadian and Swedish planes which were carrying arms to the
Kurdistan region illegally were discharged and returned to their
bases in Kuwait and Turkey.

According to the statement,
"upon the order of the commander-in-chief of the Iraqi armed
forces and after several days of confiscation, the two planes were
allowed to leave Baghdad international airport with all their cargos
to their bases in Kuwait and Turkey".

In a relevant
development earlier, the Iraqi government had announced that it had
seized two planes of the US-led anti-ISIL coalition member states
that were carrying weapons to the Kurdistan Region without prior
coordination or information of Baghdad.

"The
inspection committee in Baghdad International Airport has found a
huge number of rifles equipped with silencers, as well as light and
mid-sized weapons," Head of the Iraqi Parliament's Security and
Defense Commission Hakem al-Zameli said.

He noted that
two Swedish and Canadian airplanes were going to fly to Iraq's
Kurdistan region, but they were seized after arms cargos were
discovered.

Zameli called on the Iraqi foreign ministry
to question the international coalition in this regard and warn the
coalition members to avoid such moves in the future."The
US ambassador to Baghdad has tried to send the weapons to the Iraqi
Kurdistan region, and the government should investigate this and
arrest the perpetrators," he added.

The
US and some other coalition members have been supplying arms to
different actors in Iraq.

During the last year, Iraqi
officials have on different occasions blasted the US and its allies
for supplying the ISIL in Syria with arms and ammunition under the
pretext of fighting the Takfiri terrorist group.In
late October, Iraqi volunteer forces discovered and seized US-made
military hardware and ammunition in captured terrorists'
positions.

In
early October, the Iraqi forces discovered US-made military hardware
and ammunition, including missiles, in terrorists' command center in
Salahuddin province, informed sources said.

The Iraqi
army and volunteer forces discovered US-made military hardware and
ammunition, including anti-armor missiles, in terrorists' positions
and trenches captured during the operations in the Fallujah region in
Al-Anbar province.

The Iraqi forces found a huge volume
of advanced TOW-II missiles from the Takfiri terrorists in al-Karama
city of Fallujah.The
missiles were brand new and the ISIL had transferred them to Fallujah
to use them against the Iraqi army's armored units.

Also
in October, the Iraqi forces discovered US-made military hardware and
ammunition from terrorists in the town of Beiji.

"The
military hardware and weapons had been airdropped by the US-led
warplanes and choppers for the ISIL in the nearby areas of Beiji,"
military sources told FNA.

In February, an Iraqi
provincial official lashed out at the western countries and their
regional allies for supporting Takfiri terrorists in Iraq, revealing
that the US airplanes still continue to airdrop weapons and foodstuff
for the ISIL terrorists.

"The US planes have
dropped weapons for the ISIL terrorists in the areas under ISIL
control and even in those areas that have been recently liberated
from the ISIL control to encourage the terrorists to return to those
places," Coordinator of Iraqi popular forces Jafar al-Jaberi
told FNA.

He noted that eyewitnesses in Al-Havijeh of
Kirkuk province had witnessed the US airplanes dropping several
suspicious parcels for ISIL terrorists in the province.

"Two
coalition planes were also seen above the town of Al-Khas in Diyala
and they carried the Takfiri terrorists to the region that has
recently been liberated from the ISIL control," Al-Jaberi
said.Also
in February, a senior lawmaker disclosed that Iraq's army has shot
down two British planes as they were carrying weapons for the ISIL
terrorists in Al-Anbar province.

"The
Iraqi Parliament's National Security and Defense Committee has access
to the photos of both planes that are British and have crashed while
they were carrying weapons for the ISIL," al-Zameli said.

He
said the Iraqi parliament has asked London for explanations in this
regard.

The senior Iraqi legislator further unveiled
that the government in Baghdad is receiving daily reports from people
and security forces in al-Anbar province on numerous flights by the
US-led coalition planes that airdrop weapons and supplies for ISIL in
terrorist-held areas.

The Iraqi lawmaker further noted
the cause of such western aids to the terrorist group, and explained
that the US prefers a chaotic situation in Anbar Province which is
near the cities of Karbala and Baghdad as it does not want the ISIL
crisis to come to an end.

Also in February, a senior
Iraqi provincial official lashed out at the western countries and
their regional allies for supporting Takfiri terrorists in Iraq,
revealing that US and Israeli-made weapons have been discovered from
the areas purged of ISIL terrorists.

"We have
discovered weapons made in the US, European countries and Israel from
the areas liberated from ISIL's control in Al-Baqdadi region,"
the Al-Ahad news website quoted Head of Al-Anbar Provincial Council
Khalaf Tarmouz as saying.

He noted that the weapons made
by the European countries and Israel were discovered from the
terrorists in the Eastern parts of the city of Ramadi.

Meantime,
Head of Iraqi Parliament's National Security and Defense Committee
Hakem al-Zameli also disclosed that the anti-ISIL coalition's planes
have dropped weapons and foodstuff for the ISIL in Salahuddin,
Al-Anbar and Diyala provinces.In
January, al-Zameli underlined that the coalition is the main cause of
ISIL's survival in Iraq.

"There
are proofs and evidence for the US-led coalition's military aid to
ISIL terrorists through air(dropped cargoes)," he told FNA at
the time.

He noted that the members of his committee
have already proved that the US planes have dropped advanced
weaponry, including anti-aircraft weapons, for the ISIL, and that it
has set up an investigation committee to probe into the
matter."The
US drops weapons for the ISIL on the excuse of not knowing about the
whereabouts of the ISIL positions and it is trying to distort the
reality with its allegations.

He
noted that the committee had collected the data and the evidence
provided by eyewitnesses, including Iraqi army officers and the
popular forces, and said, "These documents are given to the
investigation committee ... and the necessary measures will be taken
to protect the Iraqi airspace."

Also in January,
another senior Iraqi legislator reiterated that the US-led coalition
is the main cause of ISIL's survival in Iraq.

"The
international coalition is only an excuse for protecting the ISIL and
helping the terrorist group with equipment and weapons," Jome
Divan, who is member of the al-Sadr bloc in the Iraqi parliament,
said.He
said the coalition's support for the ISIL is now evident to everyone,
and continued, "The coalition has not targeted ISIL's main
positions in Iraq."

In
Late December 2014, Iraqi Parliamentary Security and Defense
Commission MP disclosed that a US plane supplied the ISIL terrorist
organization with arms and ammunition in Salahuddin province.

MP
Majid al-Gharawi stated that the available information pointed out
that US planes are supplying ISIL organization, not only in
Salahuddin province, but also other provinces, Iraq TradeLink
reported.

He added that the US and the international
coalition are "not serious in fighting against the ISIL
organization, because they have the technological power to determine
the presence of ISIL gunmen and destroy them in one month".

Gharawi
added that "the US is trying to expand the time of the war
against the ISIL to get guarantees from the Iraqi government to have
its bases in Mosul and Anbar provinces."

Salahuddin
security commission also disclosed that "unknown planes threw
arms and ammunition to the ISIL gunmen Southeast of Tikrit city".

The
sun has not risen above the North Pole since mid-September. The sea
ice—flat, landlike, windswept, and stretching as far as the eye can
see—has been bathed in darkness for months.

But
later this week, something extraordinary will happen: Air
temperatures at the Earth’s most northernly region, in the middle
of winter, will rise above freezing for only the second time on
record.

On
Wednesday, the same storm system that last week spun up deadly
tornadoes in the American southeast will burst into the far north,
centering over Iceland. It will bring strong winds and pressure as
low as is typically seen during hurricanes.

That
low pressure will suck air out of the planet’s middle latitudes and
send it rushing to the Arctic. And so on Wednesday, the North Pole
will likely see temperatures of about 35 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2
degrees Celsius. That’s 50 degrees hotter than average: It’s
usually 20 degrees Fahrenheit below zero there at this time of year.

…50
degrees hotter than average. Just think about that for a moment –
the Arctic will be hit this week by a storm that will bring heat 50
degrees hotter than usual. The simple truth is that the Planet is on
the verge of feedback loops that simply can’t stop the warming.

We
need to be on a war footing to prevent this and look for radical
change so we can adapt to the changing climate fast enough. A report
in 5 years to record the weasel word promises is like a band aid on a
decapitation.

Ultimately
I believe the Greens and their pro-market framework with their
Coke-Cola consultant leader is simply not the best vehicle for change
– there needs to be a radical green socialism to provide the
solutions because if the Paris talks are really the best we can get –
then we are doomed.

JAMES SHAW AND THE GREEN PARTY PRAISE PARIS FARCE

Rather than praising the Paris climate agreement as an 'incredible achievement', James Shaw and the Green Party should be denouncing it as a failure and a fraud.

GIVEN
THE MISGUIDED IDEOLOGICAL BELIEF of the Green Party that somehow
capitalism can be the saviour of our planet rather than its
destroyer, it came as no surprise that co-leader James Shaw should
wax lyrical over the Paris climate agreement.

If
you look to the horizon now, you can see little James tugging
desperately on the chain of the capitalist beast as it drags him -
and the rest of us - to the abyss of environmental disaster.

'Stay
calm and don't panic!' cries out little James. 'There is a green
capitalism! I know what I'm doing!"

“There’s
no doubt this is an historic moment,' Shaw says in his prepared media
statement.'“It’s not a perfect deal by any means and there are
lots of details to work out but it’s frankly an incredible
achievement.”

Putting
aside the obvious fact that the purpose of this conference was to
work out the details of an agreement, why is it an 'incredible
achievement?' According to Shaw and the Green Party its because it
'commits' the countries of the world – including New Zealand –
"to bring their domestic policies in line with a goal of
limiting global warming to 1.5C."

But
it does nothing of the sort. Shaw should not be knocking back
champagne in Paris and congratulating the conference for a job well
done, but condemning this agreement for consigning the world to an
increase in global warning of 3-4 celsius. That's estimate of Naomi
Klein, who - unlike Shaw - knows what she's talking about.

Despite
what Shaw claims, this agreement commits the countries of the world,
including New Zealand, to nothing.

Pablo
Solon: Paris agreement is 'a farce, a sham'.

All
the participants have done is promise to lower their carbon
emissions, there is nothing that binds any government to changing
their domestic polices in order to lower global warming. They might
claim this is the goal, but there's no program for achieving it.
Everything's 'aspirational'.

The
former Bolivian ambassador and climate change negotiator Pablo Solón
has displayed the kind of hard nosed realism and honesty not
displayed by James Shaw. He has described the agreement as 'a farce,
a sham'.

Says
Solon: "The COP is a summit of schizophrenic governments because
they say they want to reduce emissions but they don’t mention the
source of emissions–which is fossil fuel extraction and
deforestation. A coherent way to address this would be to establish a
limit of extraction of fossil fuels and an immediate end to
deforestation. If these two measures are not adopted, how are we
going to reduce emissions? Magic? Impossible.”

The
figures are also suspect, to say the least, although James Shaw and
the Green Party have swallowed them, hook, line and sinker. Says
Shaw: '“What Paris has shown is that the world is moving only in
one direction, and that is towards a low-carbon future. Countries
like the US and China are at the forefront of that shift. New Zealand
needs to catch up.”

Shaw
is badly wrong again. China says it will cut its emissions only in
terms of carbon intensity. But as Jamie Neale points out:

"Carbon
intensity is the amount of carbon in fossil fuels that is needed to
produce the same amount of work. Carbon intensity has been going down
in the United States for a hundred years. It is going down all over
the world. This is because we learn to use coal, oil and gas more
efficiently, just like we learn to use everything else in industry
more productively. So a promise to cut carbon intensity is a promise
to increase emissions."

If
you want to learn more about how the figures have been juggled and
massaged, Jonathan Neale is worth reading here.

To
defend this empty agreement as a 'first step' to real change, as the
Green's Julie Anne Genter did on Paul Henry this morning, is simply
unacceptable. The future of the planet is at stake and to defend an
agreement like this makes Genter and the Green Party complicit in a
massive fraud being foisted on us all.

The
Green Party should be listening to people like Pablo Solon: "The
Paris Agreement repeats old mistakes and will fail. The answer lies
in a self-organized, self-conscious and empowered humanity that
believes in itself and nature more than in technology and market
forces."

James
Shaw says that “If there’s ever a time to stop making excuses,
it’s now.” I agree. James Shaw and the Green Party should stop
defending and making excuses for this agreement. They should stop
doing it now.

We
are sorry you decided to leave the party and that you so strongly
disagree with my comments that the signing of an agreement at COP21
was a positive achievement.

By
signing up to the Paris Agreement goal limiting global warming to
1.5oC, which wasn’t even an option before COP21 started, countries
are now obliged to start taking action consistent with that goal.

We’ve
also been very critical of the National Government in the last few
days. Their comments that the Agreement means that nothing more is
required of New Zealand is clearly wrong, as our own domestic policy
settings are the equivalent of a 3.5-3.8oC temperature rise.

My
view is that it is an enormous achievement to get 196 countries to
agree on anything (the first time it’s been done since the founding
of the UN, with the possible exception of the Montreal Protocol) and
that it is better to have an agreement to act on climate change than
to continue not to have one. The result would have been far, far
worse, had we not come to the Paris Agreement (estimates suggest
that, absent the Paris Agreement, we would be on track for a 4.5-5.5o
C temperature increase).

It
is a very weak agreement – as any agreement would be that had to
include the states that currently rely on fossil fuels for their
income – but we have to make it work. It is our only hope.

The
Agreement itself will be reviewed every five years, with an initial
assessment of the science and the policy settings needed to maintain
1.5o C in 2018 by the IPCC. This is the all-important ‘ratchet
mechanism’ for tightening the screws over time. Will it be enough,
or fast enough, to save Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and others? I
hope so. That’s why I used the quotation of Churchill’s that,
“this is not the end, it is not even the beginning of the end, but
it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

After
21 years of negotiations to get a global agreement, we have one but
we are well aware that the harder work starts now.

Once
again we’re sorry to see you leave, but we wish you all the best.
And you’d be welcome back anytime.

I’d like to make it clear that this was not a ‘knee-jerk’
reaction taken in the heat of the moment of the Cop (out) 21
agreement being signed.

I have been considering this decision for
a very long time and the ‘tipping point’ for me was the fact that
you didn’t adequately qualify how bad and terminal for most complex
life-forms on this planet the ‘agreement’ is. I was shocked how
ill prepared your press statement sounded and that it completely
understated the severity of our predicament and how little the
agreement will contribute to slowing down this disaster, in fact it
will have little or no positive effect and more critical time will be
lost.

After Copenhagen and Kyoto’s abject failure it was
recognised that having some kind of agreement was imperative in
Paris. That has been achieved but effectively it is an agreement for
mostly business as usual with non- binding emission reductions and
little or no consideration for the fact that we are now in a time of
abrupt climate change and we will witness an exponential, non-linear
unravelling of our biosphere.

I accept having 1.5 C as an
aspiration included was a huge victory but it is in fact little more
than a feel good factor when our trajectory is towards and beyond the
IPCC worst case scenario of 6C when you factor in the exponential
nature of where we are now, the ten to forty year lag in cause and
effect and the unleashing of numerous tipping points. I note you said
in your email to me “countries are now obliged to start taking
action consistent with that goal.”, they aren’t obliged to
anything, encouraged yes, obliged no.

There are thousands of fires
currently burning in Indonesia that are emitting more carbon than the
USA, it is the equivalent of having a new # 2 emitter appear on the
planet out of the blue, this is what we can expect going forward with
the next major ‘cab off the rank’ being the exponential increase
in discharge of methane from the permafrost and the ocean clathrates.
I note that the eco-terrorist John Key has approved deep sea drilling
in regions that have proven methane deposits that are already
discharging, the cognitive dissonance shown is stupefying ! In the
PETM extinction event this heated the planet up 5C in a mere 13
years, scientists previously thought this had taken thousands of
years. We could conceivably be in a parallel window to that now . The
consequences of that will be the extinction of most if not all
complex life-forms and the meltdowns of 438 nuclear power stations
and 1000 spent fuel pool fires which incidentally will be far worse
than the melt downs! If your reaction to that scenario is that it
sounds alarmist please remember the reactionary Winston Churchill was
considered an alarmist in 1937 and 8 brutal years later over 50
million people were dead.

I recently interviewed Dr Jim Salinger
who conceded in a public meeting I attended in Hamilton that we are
in abrupt climate change. Jim is a wonderful guy but his conclusions
are very conservative in line with his profession and he admitted to
being hopeful when there is zero visible reason and under the
precautionary principle we should all be preparing for the worst as
is my training as a yachtmaster with 16 ocean passages completed,
mostly in our dying Pacific.My interview with Jim is
here;

I
understand that my position is a ‘hard sell’ for a political
party trying to gain electoral success but this catastrophe presents
an opportunity for the Greens to position themselves for a sea change
that is definitely coming in the public’s mind. We will see more
and more extreme weather events in the weeks and months ahead which
will freak out the populace world- wide, I believe the Greens are
missing a golden opportunity to be a leader not only in NZ but
globally. I believe the party’s narrative needs to be radically
altered to reflect the seriousness of the situation.

Very soon we
will have a few billion very, very angry young people on this planet
when they realise the ecological legacy we have left them. Speaking
truth to the youth is more important now than it has ever been and
presents you as the leader of the party, an absolutely golden
opportunity to make a huge impact not just here but on the global
stage. There is a paradigm shift unfolding on this planet, I
challenge you to grasp this opportunity and lead.

All of the dire
assumptions I allude to above are in embedded links in this post from
the Daily Blog, I only post the link to make it easy for you to
source it should you want
clarification.

The
purpose of me going public was not to bag the party but to stimulate
a debate that wasn’t happening. My feedback from both members and
non- members of the party has been much more positive than I ever
expected and indicates that I have addressed an issue that has been
praying on many people’s minds, mission partially accomplished. You
have generously left the door open for me to return to the party
which I might consider if my concerns were addressed and there was a
sea change in the party’s narrative. I spend my life trying to
raise awareness of the severity of this predicament and any vehicle
open to me will be grasped willingly as long as I can address the
predicament honestly and transparently, I am in the fortunate
position of being beholding to no one.

I had lunch with Pearl
Going and Susi Newborn yesterday, Pearl spoke very highly of you and
suggested you and I should meet personally sometime, I’m available
if you wish to do so.